Interpersonal Relations and 18 Group Processes

CHAPTER OUTLINE

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

INTRODUCTION

INTERPERSONAL BEHAVIOURBeing in the presence of other peopleThe influence of authorityAffiliation, attraction and close relationships

GROUP PROCESSESTaking our place in the groupHow groups influence their membersHow groups get things done

INTERGROUP RELATIONSDeindividuation, collective behaviour and the crowdCooperation and competition between groupsSocial categories and social identityPrejudice and discriminationBuilding social harmony

FINAL THOUGHTS

SUMMARY

REVISION QUESTIONS

FURTHER READING

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Learning ObjectivesBy the end of this chapter you should appreciate that:

n the presence of other people can have significant effects on our behaviour;

n under certain conditions people obey the orders of an authority figure to the extent of harming innocent others;

n social support and close interpersonal relationships benefit our health and happiness;

n membership of groups can have both positive and negative consequences on people’s behaviour and judgement,depending on the context;

n membership of groups can help us to withstand authoritarian influences, but it can also inhibit our tendency tohelp others and can increase prejudice and conflict;

n knowledge of the interpersonal processes and mechanisms involved can help to reduce the negative aspects ofgroup membership.

One of the most distinctive aspects of humanbeings is that we are social. We are each affectedby the presence of other people, we form relation-ships with other people, we join groups with otherpeople, and we behave in certain ways towardsmembers of our own and other groups.

The previous chapter focused on various aspectsof social evaluation and how we process socialinformation – intra-personal processes. In thischapter, we look more broadly at the ways in whichour behaviour is genuinely social. How are we influ-enced by, and how do we influence, other people?

First, we here ask the elementary question of

how we are affected by simply being in the presenceof other people. We then look at ways in whichpeople interact with one another – particularly howpeople form close relationships with one another.Next, we look at how people in groups, and howgroups as a whole, behave. How does being in agroup affect what we think and do? How do groupsperform typical group tasks and activities?

Finally, we consider how groups interact with andperceive one another; how people as group mem-bers relate to people who are not in their group;and how both cooperative and competitive forms ofintergroup behaviour arise and can be changed.

INTRODUCTION

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386386 Interpersonal Relations and Group Processes

incorrect behaviour (e.g. trying to write notes in a lecture beforewe have understood properly what is being said), then social pres-ence can impair performance (social inhibition) (see figure 18.1and Markus, 1978).

Zajonc believed that drive was an innate reaction to the merepresence of others. Other views are that drive results from anacquired apprehension about being evaluated by others (Cottrell,1972) or from conflict between paying attention to a task and toan audience (e.g. Sanders, 1981). Still other researchers discardthe notion of drive entirely. They suggest that social facilitationmay occur because of distraction and subsequent narrowing ofattention, which hinders performance of poorly learned or difficulttasks but leaves unaffected or improves performance of welllearned or easy tasks (Baron, 1986; Manstead & Semin, 1980).

Alternatively, social presence might motivate concern withself-presentation – i.e. how we appear to others (rather than con-cern specifically about being evaluated by them) (Bond, 1982) ormake us more self-aware (Wicklund, 1975). This might thenincrease cognitive effort, which is considered to improve perform-ance on easy tasks but not on difficult tasks (where failure andsocial embarrassment might be anticipated).

Overall, then, the empirical finding from this body of researchis that the presence of others improves performance on easytasks, but impairs performance on difficult tasks (see Bond &Titus, 1983). But no single explanation seems to account for socialfacilitation and social inhibition effects (Guerin, 1993). Instead,several concepts – including arousal, evaluation apprehension,and distraction conflict – are involved.

Bystander apathy and intervention

One type of behaviour that might be affected by the presence ofother people is our inclination to offer help to someone whoneeds it. This question can be studied from many perspectives.One of these is evolutionary psychology – do people help otherssimply as members of their own species, or only those with whomthey shares genes? (see Batson, 1983; and Dawkins’, 1976, notionof the ‘selfish gene’). Another perspective is that of socialization –do we learn to help others as a result of direct instructions, rein-forcement, social learning and modelling (see Bandura, 1973)?

Two of the most important lines of research on helping bysocial psychologists have focused on situational factors that

BEING IN THE PRESENCE OF OTHER PEOPLE

Social facilitation

Intuitively, most of us probably think the term ‘social’ meansdoing things with (or being in the presence of ) other people, andthat social psychology is therefore about the causes and effects ofthis ‘social presence’. Although social psychologists use the term‘social’ in a much broader way than this, the effect of the physicalpresence of other people on our behaviour remains an importantresearch question (Guerin, 1993).

In fact, in 1898 Triplett designed one of the earliest social psychology experiments to address this very question. He dis-covered from analysis of published records that cyclists go fasterwhen paced by another cyclist, and he decided to investigate this phenomenon under more controlled conditions. Triplett had 40 children reel in fishing lines, either alone or in pairs, and he discovered that the children tended to perform the task morequickly when in the presence of someone else doing the sametask. Triplett attributed this ‘quickening effect’ to the arousal of a competitive instinct.

Some years later, F. Allport(1920) coined the term socialfacilitation to refer to a moreclearly defined effect in whichthe mere presence of con-specifics (i.e. members of thesame species) would improveindividual task performance.These conspecifics might beco-actors (i.e. doing the same

task but not interacting) or simply a passive audience (i.e. observ-ing the task performance).

Research (much of it with an exotic array of different species)seemed to confirm this. We now know that cockroaches runfaster, chickens, fish and rats eat more, and pairs of rats copulatemore when being ‘watched’ by members of their own species (seeZajonc, Heingartner & Herman, 1969). However, later researchfound that the presence of conspecifics sometimes impairs per-formance, although it was often unclear what degree of socialpresence produced impairment (i.e. coaction or a passive audience).

Zajonc (1965) put forward a drive theory to explain social facil-itation effects. He argued that, because people are unpredictable,the mere presence of a passive audience instinctively and auto-matically produces increased arousal and motivation. This wasproposed to act as a drive that produces dominant responses forthat situation (i.e. well learned, instinctive or habitual behavioursthat take precedence over alternative responses under conditionsof heightened arousal or motivation). But do dominant responsesimprove task performance? Zajonc argued that if the dominantresponse is the correct behaviour for that situation (e.g. pedallingwhen we get on a bicycle), then social presence improves per-formance (social facilitation). But if the dominant response is an

INTERPERSONAL BEHAVIOUR

social facilitation an increase in dominant responses in the presence ofothers of the same species, leading to improved performance on well-learned/easy tasks and deterioration in performance on poorly learned/difficult tasks

Presenceof others Arousal Improved

performance onroutine/simpletasks

Impairedperformance onnovel/complextasks

Facilitation ofdominantresponses

Inhibition ofnon-dominantresponses

Ifappropriate,correct

Ifinappropriate,incorrect

Figure 18.1

Zajonc’s (1965) explanation of social facilitation/inhibition.Source: Hewstone and Stroebe (2001).

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Interpersonal Behaviour 387387

Figure 18.2

When there are several bystanders, it is less likely that a victimwill receive help.

office next door had climbed onto a chair, fallen on the floor andlay moaning in pain. This incident lasted 130 seconds. In one con-dition, the student who overheard the information was alone. Ina second condition, another student (a confederate of the experi-menter, who had been instructed to be passive) was also present.In a third condition, the student participant was with a stranger atthe time of the accident, and in a fourth condition the studentparticipant was with a friend.

Although two people could have intervened in the third andfourth conditions, in only 40 per cent of stranger dyads and 70 percent of friend dyads did at least one student intervene. The indi-vidual likelihood of intervention has to be calculated according toa special formula that corrects for the fact that two people are freeto act in two conditions (with stranger; with friend), but only oneperson is free to act in the remaining two conditions (with passiveconfederate; alone). The individual likelihood of intervention wasin fact twice as high when students were with a friend (i.e. fourthcondition) compared with a stranger (i.e. third condition). Bothof these corrected intervention rates for the third and fourth con-ditions were lower than in the condition where the participantwas alone (first condition), but higher than in the second condition,where there was a passive confederate present at the time of theaccident (see figure 18.3).

Subsequent research indicated that three types of social processseem to cause the social inhibition of helping in such situations:

1. diffusion of responsibility (when others are present, ourown perceived responsibility is lowered);

2. ignorance about how others interpret the event; and3. feelings of unease about how our own behaviour will be

evaluated by others present.

So, witnesses to the Kitty Genovese murder may have failed tointervene because:

1. they saw other people present, and so did not feel responsible;

encourage or discourage helping, and on what motives mayunderlie helping others.

A critical feature of the immediate situation that deter-mines whether by standershelp someone who is in needof help (bystander intervention)is the number of potentialhelpers who are present. This

approach was stimulated by the widely reported murder of KittyGenovese in New York in 1964: although 38 people admitted witnessing the murder, not a single person ran to her aid. Toexplain bystander intervention (or its opposite – apathy), Darley,Latané and others carried out a series of classic experiments (Darley& Batson, 1973; Darley & Latané, 1968; Latané & Rodin, 1969).

Numerous studies indicate that the willingness to intervene inemergencies is higher when a bystander is alone (Latané & Nida,1981). In one of the first experiments showing this effect (Latané& Rodin, 1969), students overheard that a woman working in the

bystander intervention occurs whenan individual breaks out of the role as abystander and helps another person inan emergency

Perc

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Two strangersWith passiveconfederate

Two friends

Number and nature of persons present

Alone

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Observed per cent

Corrected per cent

Figure 18.3

The effect of the presence and identity of others on bystanderintervention in an emergency. Source: Hewstone and Stroebe(2001), based on Latané & Rodin (1969).

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As figure 18.4 shows, participants only took up the optionoffered by the ‘easy escape’ condition and failed to help when thevictim had dissimilar attitudes. These results were interpreted asbeing consistent with the hypothesis that high attitude similarityincreases altruistic motivation, whereas low attitude similarityencourages egoistic motivation.

Batson’s altruism theory was opposed by the view that peoplewere, in fact, helping for selfish, rather than altruistic, motives. So helping could sometimes be motivated by an egoistic desire togain relief from a negative state (such as distress, guilt or unhappi-ness) when faced with another person in need of help. Althougha meta-analysis by Carlson and Miller (1987) did not support thisidea, there is continued controversy between the ‘altruists’ and‘egoists’ as to why we help others (see Batson et al., 1997; Cialdiniet al., 1997; Schaller & Cialdini, 1988). Batson (e.g., 1991) continuesto maintain that helping under the conditions investigated by himis motivated positively by the feeling of ‘situational empathy’,rather than by an egoistic desire to relieve the ‘situational distress’of watching another person suffer.

Helping is also increased by prosocial societal or group norms.These can be general norms of reciprocity (‘help those who helpyou’; Gouldner, 1960) or social responsibility (‘help those inneed;’ Berkowitz, 1972), or more specific helping norms tied tothe nature of a social group (e.g. ‘we should help older people’).Other factors that increase helping include being in a good mood(Isen, 1987) and assuming a leadership role in the situation(Baumeister, Chesner, Senders & Tice, 1988). Research has alsoshown that, relative to situational variables, personality and gen-der are poor predictors of helping (Huston & Korte, 1976; Latané& Darley, 1970).

Note that many of these studies on helping are ‘high impact’experiments – fascinating to read about but potentially distressingto participate in. Because of the greater sensitivity to ethical issues

2. they were unsure about how the others present interpretedthe situation; and

3. they were embarrassed about how they might look if theyrushed in to help when, for some reason, this might beinappropriate.

On the basis of studies such as this, Latané and Darley (1970) proposed a cognitive model of bystander intervention. Helping(or not) was considered to depend on a series of decisions:

1. noticing that something is wrong;2. defining it as an emergency;3. deciding whether to take personal responsibility;4. deciding what type of help to give; and5. implementing the decision.

Bystanders also seem to weigh up costs and benefits of inter-vention vs. apathy before deciding what to do. Piliavin, Dovidio,Gaertner and Clark (1981) proposed a bystander calculus modelthat assigns a key role to arousal. They proposed that emergen-cies make us aroused, situational factors determine how thatarousal is labelled and what emotion is felt (see chapter 6), andthen we assess the costs and benefits of helping or not helpingbefore deciding what to do.

To summarize findings from this area of research, the presenceof multiple bystanders seems the strongest inhibitor of bystanderintervention due to diffusion of personal responsibility, fear ofsocial blunders and social reinforcement for inaction. In addition,the costs of not helping are apparently reduced by the presence ofother potential helpers. People tend to help more if they are aloneor among friends, if situational norms or others’ behaviour pre-scribe helping, if they feel they have the skills to offer effectivehelp, or if the personal costs of not helping are high.

Motives for helping

A rather different line of research has concentrated on themotives underlying helping (or, more generally, prosocialbehaviour) – in particular, whether people help for altruistic oregoistic motives. A discussion of the genetic argument is beyondthis chapter (see Dawkins, 1976; Bierhoff, 2002).

Batson and colleagues (1981) had female students observe‘Elaine’, an experimental confederate, who was apparentlyreceiving electric shocks. In the second trial of the experiment,Elaine appeared to be suffering greatly from the shocks, at whichpoint the experimenter asked the female observer whether shewould be willing to continue with the experiment by takingElaine’s place.

In one condition, participants believed that Elaine shared manyattitudes with them. In another condition, they were led to thinkthat she held dissimilar attitudes. The experiment also manipu-lated difficulty of escape. In the ‘easy escape’ condition, particip-ants knew that they could leave the observation room after thesecond trial, which meant that they would not be forced to con-tinue observing Elaine’s plight if the experiment continued withher. In the ‘difficult escape’ condition, they were instructed toobserve the victim through to the end of the study.

Per

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hel

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Dissimilar

Similarity of attitudes between victim and helper

Similar

100

90

80

70

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Easy escape

Difficult escape

Figure 18.4

Percentage of participants who helped Elaine, depending onsimilarity/empathy and difficulty of escape. Source: Hewstoneand Stroebe (2001), based on Batson et al. (1981).

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in research today (see chapter 2), it would be difficult now to con-duct some of these studies, as well as other studies described inthis chapter.

THE INFLUENCE OF AUTHORITY

The research on both social facilitation and helping shows thatthe mere presence of other people can have a clear effect onbehaviour. But this effect can be tremendously amplified if thoseothers actively try to influence us – for example, from a positionof authority.

Legitimate authority figures can be particularly influential; theycan give orders that people blindly obey without really thinkingabout the consequences. This has been the focus of one of socialpsychology’s most significant and socially meaningful pieces ofresearch (Blass, 2000; Miller, 1986; Miller, Collins & Brief, 1995).Milgram (1963; and see chapter 1) discovered that quite ordinarypeople taking part in a laboratory experiment were prepared toadminister electric shocks (450V), which they believed wouldharm another participant, simply because an authoritative experi-menter told them to do so. This study showed that apparently‘pathological’ behaviour may not be due to individual pathology(the participants were ‘normal’) but to particular social circum-stances. The situation encouraged extreme obedience.

Milgram (1965, 1974) subsequently conducted a whole series ofstudies using this paradigm. One of his most significant findingswas that social support is the single strongest moderator of theeffect. So, obedience is strengthened if others are obedient, andmassively reduced if others are disobedient.

Milgram investigated the role of peer pressure by creating asituation with three ‘co-teachers’, the participant and two con-federates. The first confederate presented the task, the secondregistered the learner’s responses, and the participant actuallyadministered the shocks. At 150V, the first confederate refused tocontinue and took a seat away from the shock generator. At210V, the second confederate refused to continue. The effect oftheir behaviour on the participants was dramatic: only 10 per centof the participants were now maximally obedient (see figure18.5). In contrast, if the teacher administering the learning taskwas accompanied by a co-teacher, who gave the shocks, 92 percent of the participants continued to be obedient to the end of thestudy. The powerful role of interpersonal factors (i.e. peers whohad the temerity to disobey) was evident from this investigation(see Blass, 2000).

One unanticipated consequence of Milgram’s research was afierce debate about the ethics of social psychological research(Baumrind, 1985; Miller, 1986). Although no electric shocks wereactually given in Milgram’s study, participants genuinely believedthat they were administering shocks and showed great distress.Was it right to conduct this study?

This debate led to strict guidelines for psychological research.Three of the main components of this code are (i) that particip-ants must give their fully informed consent to take part, (ii) thatthey can withdraw at any point without penalty, and (iii) thatafter participation they must be fully debriefed (see discussion ofresearch ethics in chapter 2).

AFFILIATION, ATTRACTION AND CLOSERELATIONSHIPS

Seeking the company of others

Human beings have a strong need to affiliate with other people,through belonging to groups and developing close interpersonalrelationships. The consequences of social deprivation areseverely maladaptive (ranging from loneliness to psychosis), andsocial isolation is a potent punishment that can take many forms(solitary confinement, shunning, ostracism, the ‘silent treatment’).

Most of us choose to spenda great deal of time with others, especially when weexperience threat (Schachter,1959) or feel anxious (Buunk,1995). Our motives for affilia-tion include social comparison(we learn about ourselves,our skills, abilities, percep-tions and attitudes; Festinger,1954), anxiety reduction (Stroebe & Stroebe, 1997) and informa-tion seeking (Shaver & Klinnert, 1982). Hospitals now routinelyencourage surgical patients who have undergone the same med-ical procedure to talk to others to help reduce anxiety (Gump &Kulik, 1997).

People usually seek out and maintain the company of peoplethey like. We tend to like others whom we consider physicallyattractive, and who are nearby, familiar and available, and with

Perc

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Disobeyingpeers

present

No peerpresent

Obeyingpeers

present

100

50

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Figure 18.5

Obedience as a function of peer behaviour. Source: Hewstoneand Stroebe (2001), data from Milgram (1974).

social comparison the act of com-paring oneself, usually with similar others, to assess one’s attitudes, abilit-ies, behaviours and emotions; thesecomparisons are most likely to occurwhen people are uncertain about themselves

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Milgram’s study of obedienceThe research issue

There were two significant triggers for this research. First, Milgram wanted to understand how individual acts of obediencecould have taken place that led to the systematic annihilation of the Jews during the Holocaust. Second, he was fascinatedwith the trial in Jerusalem of the arch-architect of the ‘Final Solution’, Adolf Eichmann.

Milgram wondered whether most people would show destructive obedience and, prior to this research, he doubted it.Indeed, this study represents what was intended to be the ‘baseline’, a situation in which few people were expected toobey. The original idea was that later research would then manipulate key variables, and investigate their impact on ratesof obedience (see Milgram, 1965, 1974).

This study is one of the most widely known in psychology – because of what it found, as well as the ethical issues itraised about social-psychological research.

Design and procedureThe work was conducted at Yale University. Forty males (aged 20–50 years) drawn from in and around the city of NewHaven, Connecticut (USA), were recruited to participate in a study on ‘memory and learning’. No mention was made at anystage that the study concerned obedience.

There was no experimental design as such, because no factors were manipulated. The teacher–learner scenario wasexplained, and participants were led to believe that roles had been determined by chance, although the ‘victim’ (the ‘learner’)was, in fact, an experimental confederate (i.e. he was instructed how to behave by the experimenter). The experimenterexplained that, by means of a ‘shock generator’, the participant (as ‘teacher’) was to deliver increasingly more intense elec-tric shocks to the ‘learner’ each time they made a mistake on the learning task. The shock generator had a row of 30 push-buttons, each marked by the appropriate intensity (from 15 V to 450 V). Successive shock levels were clarified by verballabels ranging from slight shock (to 60 V), through moderate shock (to 120 V), strong shock (to 180 V) and very strongshock (to 240 V), to intense shock (to 300 V), extreme intensity shock (to 360 V) and ‘danger: severe shock’ (to 420 V).The two final shock levels were marked ‘XXX’. In fact, no shocks were delivered, but the teacher did not know this as thelearner pretended to suffer, convincing the participants that they were administering real shocks.

The procedure was carefully scripted so that the experimental scenario had a very high impact on participants, withoutsacrificing control over the situation. Both the victim’s responses (a predetermined set of grunts, screams etc.) and theexperimenter’s commands (four levels of ‘prods’) were held constant throughout the study.

The study ended with a detailed debriefing, which included uniting the participant with the victim and conveying the assur-ance that no shocks had in fact been delivered in the study.

Results and implicationsNo statistics are reported on the data, nor are they needed, since no experimental variations were compared in the study.The primary dependent measure was the maximum shock a participant administered before refusing to go any further, ona scale from 0 (i.e. refusing to administer the first shock) to 30 (a 450 V shock). Unexpectedly, given Milgram’s prior sup-positions, no participant discontinued before administering at least a 300 V shock. Across the sample, maximal obediencewas shown by 26 of 40 respondents, or 65 per cent (see table 18.1). Milgram concluded that ordinary people were capa-ble of high levels of destructive obedience in response to strong situational pressures.

This study triggered an outcry regarding ethical issues. Milgram was severely criticized for inducing suffering in his participants.Could this extent of suffering be dealt with in normal debriefing? How might participants be affected by learning that they

could be so easily deceived and that they were (apparently) capable of committing great harm under instruction? Shouldthe experiment have even been carried out? Was the research sufficiently important to justify such deception and stress?These are just some of the issues that you may wish to reflect upon . . .

Milgram, S., 1963, ‘Behavioral study of obedience’, Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67, 371–8.

ResearResearch close-up 1ch close-up 1

Table 18.1 Number of participants who proceeded to each level of shock.

Verbal designation and shock indication No. of participants for whom this was maximum shock level

Slight shock (15–60 volts) 0Moderate shock (75–120 volts) 0Strong shock (135–180 volts) 0Very strong shock (195–240 volts) 0Intense shock (255–300 volts) 5Extreme intensity shock (315–360 volts) 8Danger: severe shock (375–420 volts) 1XXX (435–450 volts) 26

Source: Adapted from Milgram (1963).

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whom we expect continued interaction. How many of yourfriends at college live close to you on campus? The likely answeris ‘many of them’ (see Festinger, Schachter & Back, 1950). Wealso tend to like people who have similar attitudes and values toour own (Byrne, 1971), especially when these attitudes and valuesare personally important to us.

The importance of social support

Generally, having appropri-ate social support is a verypowerful ‘buffer’ againststressful events. Cohen andHoberman (1983) found that,among individuals who feltthat their life was very stress-ful, those who perceivedthemselves to have low socialsupport reported many more

physical symptoms (e.g. headaches, insomnia) than those whofelt they had high social support (see figure 18.6). Overall, the evidence is clear – social integration is good for our physical andpsychological health (Stroebe & Stroebe, 1997).

Social exchange theory

A general theoretical frame-work for the study of inter-personal relationships is socialexchange theory (Thibaut &Kelley, 1959). This approachregards relationships as effec-tively trading interactions,including goods (e.g. birthdaypresents), information (e.g.

advice), love (affection, warmth), money (things of value), ser-vices (e.g. shopping, childcare) and status (e.g. evaluative judge-ments). A relationship continues when both partners feel that thebenefits of remaining in the relationship outweigh the costs andthe benefits of other relationships.

According to this framework, these considerations apply toeven our most intimate friendships. We now turn to a considera-tion of these closest relationships in our lives. It is argued thatthese relationships are also based on complex cost–benefit ana-lyses (‘she brings the money in and is practical, but I have a secure pension and do more for the children’). According to themore specific equity theory,partners in such relation-ships are happier if they feelthat both partners’ outcomesare proportional to theirinputs, rather than one part-ner receiving more than theygive (Walster, Walster &Berscheid, 1978).

Happy vs. distressed relationships

A major characteristic of happy, close relationships is a high degreeof intimacy. According to Reis and Patrick (1996), we view ourclosest relationships as intimate if we see them as:

n caring (we feel that the other person loves and cares aboutus);

n understanding (we feel that the other person has an accur-ate understanding of us); and

n validating (our partner communicates his or her accept-ance, acknowledgement and support for our point of view).

Unhappy or ‘distressed’ relationships, on the other hand, arecharacterized by higher rates of negative behaviour, reciprocat-ing with such negative behaviour when the partner behaves negatively towards us. Reciprocation, or retaliation, is the mostreliable sign of relationship distress (Fincham, 2003). Those inunhappy relationships also tend to ignore or cover up differences(Noller & Fitzpatrick, 1990), compare themselves negatively withother couples (Buunk et al., 1990) and perceive their relationshipas less equitable than others (van Yperen & Buunk, 1991). Theyalso make negative causal attributions of their partner’sbehaviours and characteristics (Fincham & Bradbury, 1991). Forexample, being given flowers might be explained away with ‘He’sjust trying to deal with his guilt; he’ll be the same as usual tomor-row.’ In a happy relationship, the explanation is more likely to besomething like ‘It was nice of him to find time for that; I knowhow stressed he is at the moment.’

The investment model

Ultimately, what holds a relationship together is commitment –the inclination to maintain a relationship and to feel psychologically

social support the feeling of being supported by others, whether in one’sbroader social network (which impactspositively on health and stress) orwithin a small group (which helps oneto resist pressures to comply with anoutside majority or obey an immoralauthority)

Phys

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LowPerceived stress

Low social supportHigh social support

High

20

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16

14

12

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Figure 18.6

The relationship between perceived stress and physical symp-tomatology for individuals low and high in social support.Source: Hewstone and Stroebe (2001), based on Cohen andHoberman (1983).

social exchange theory a general theor-etical model that views relationships interms of rewards and costs to particip-ants; expected outcomes are based onpersonal standards, prior experience,partner’s outcomes, and the outcomesof comparable others

equity theory assumes that satisfactionin a relationship is highest when theratio of one’s own outcomes to inputsis equal to that of a referenced other(individuals will try to restore equitywhen they find themselves in aninequitable situation)

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Another perspective, based on social comparison theory(Festinger, 1954), is that we affiliate with similar others in orderto obtain support and consensus for our own perceptions, opinionsand attitudes.

A third approach rests on social identity theory (Hogg &Abrams, 1988; Tajfel & Turner, 1986). According to this frame-work, group formation involves a process of defining ourselves asgroup members, and conforming to what we see as the stereo-type of our group, as distinct from other groups. We categorizeourselves in terms of our group’s defining features (Hogg, 1993)– e.g. ‘we are psychology students, we are studying a useful subject’. This process describes and evaluates who we are and is responsible for group phenomena such as group cohesion, con-formity to norms, discrimination between different groups, andso forth.

Group development

The process of joining and being influenced by a group doesn’tgenerally happen all at once. It is an ongoing process. The relev-ant mechanisms have been investigated by many social psycho-logists interested in group development, or how groups changeover time.

One very well established general model of group develop-ment is Tuckman’s five-stage model (1965; Tuckman & Jensen,1977):

forming – initially people orient themselves to one another;storming – they then struggle with one another over leadership

and group definition;norming – this leads into agreement on norms and roles;performing – the group is now well regulated internally and can

perform smoothly and efficiently;adjourning – this final stage involves issues of independence

within the group, and possible group dissolution.

More recently, Levine and Moreland (1994) have provided adetailed account of group socialization – how groups and theirmembers adapt to one another, and how people join groups,maintain their membership and leave groups. According to thisaccount, groups and their members engage in an ongoingcost–benefit analysis of membership (similar to the kinds of analyses that we have already discussed as being relevant in regulating dyadic interpersonal relationships). If the benefits ofthe group membership outweigh the costs, the group and itsmembers become committed to one another.

This approach highlights five generic roles that people occupyin groups:

prospective member – potential members reconnoitre the groupto decide whether to commit;

new member – members learn the norms and practices of thegroup;

full member – members are fully socialized, and can now nego-tiate more specific roles within the group;

marginal member – members can drift out of step with grouplife, but may be re-socialized if they drift back again; and

attached to it (Rusbult, 1983).According to the investmentmodel (Rusbult & Buunk,1993), commitment is basedon one or more of the follow-ing factors: high satisfaction,low quality of alternatives,

and a high level of investments. Highly committed individuals aremore willing to make sacrifices for their relationship, and to con-tinue it even when forced to give up important aspects of theirlife (Van Lange et al., 1997).

Close relationships do, regrettably, often dissolve, sometimesas a result of extreme levels of violence committed within inti-mate relationships (Gelles, 1997). The ending of a relationship isoften a lengthy, complex process, with repeated episodes ofconflict and reconciliation (Cate & Lloyd, 1988). Women tend toterminate intimate relationships more often than do men (Gray& Silver, 1990) and are more distressed by relationship conflict(Surra & Longstreth, 1990).

But for both partners the consequences can be devastating.The physical and mental health of divorced people is generallyworse than that of married people, or even people who havebeen widowed or never married (Stroebe & Stroebe, 1987).Factors that predict better adjustment to divorce include havingtaken the initiative to divorce, being embedded in social net-works, and having another satisfying and intimate relationship(Price-Bonham et al., 1983).

TAKING OUR PLACE IN THE GROUP

Almost all groups are structured into specific roles. People movein and out of roles, and in and out of groups. Groups are dynamicin terms of their structure and their membership. But first of all,of course, people need to join groups.

Joining groups

We join groups for all sorts of reasons, but in many cases we arelooking for company (e.g. friendships and hobby groups) or to get things done that we cannot do on our own (e.g. therapygroups, work groups and professional organizations). We alsotend to identify with large groups (social categories) that webelong to – national or ethnic groups, political parties, religions,and so forth.

Research on group formation generally examines the process,not the reasons. One view is that joining a group is a matter ofestablishing bonds of attraction to the group, its goals and itsmembers. So a group is a collection of people who are attractedto one another in such a way as to form a cohesive entity(Festinger et al., 1950). This approach has been used extensivelyto study the cohesiveness of military groups, organizational unitsand sports teams (Widmeyer, Brawley & Carron, 1985).

GROUP PROCESSES

investment model a theory that pro-poses that commitment to a relation-ship is based upon high satisfaction,and/or a low quality of alternatives,and/or a high level of investment

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Group Processes 393393

ex-member – members have left the group, but previous com-mitment has an enduring effect on the group and on theex-member.

Levine and Moreland believe that people move through these dif-ferent roles during the lifetime of the group.

Roles

Almost all groups are intern-ally structured into roles. Theseprescribe different activitiesthat exist in relation to oneanother to facilitate overallgroup functioning. In addition

to task-specific roles, there are also general roles that describe eachmember’s place in the life of the group (e.g. newcomer, old-timer).Rites of passage, such as initiation rites, often mark movementbetween generic roles, which are characterized by varying degreesof mutual commitment between member and group.

Roles can be very real in their consequences. In the famousStanford Prison Study (Zimbardo et al., 1982), researchers ran-domly assigned students to play the roles of prisoners or guardsin a simulated prison set-up. The ‘prison’ was located in the base-ment of the psychology department at Stanford University.Before the study began, all participants were carefully screened toensure they were psychologically stable. Zimbardo and his teamplanned to run the study for two weeks, while observing the participants. In fact, they had to terminate it after six days becausethe participants were conforming so extremely to their roles. Theguards harassed, humiliated and intimidated the prisoners, oftenquite brutally, and the prisoners increasingly showed signs ofindividual and group disintegration, including severe emotionaldisturbance and some psychosomatic problems. The importanceof this classic study was shown recently by the appalling treat-ment of Iraqi prisoners recorded inside Abu Ghraib jail in 2003.

Roles also define functions within a group, and the differentparts of the group normally need to communicate with oneanother. Research on communication networks (Bavelas, 1968;Leavitt, 1951) focuses on centralization as the critical factor (seefigure 18.7). More centralized networks have a hub person orgroup that regulates communication flow, whereas less central-ized networks allow free communication among all roles.Centralized networks work well for simple tasks (they liberateperipheral members to perform their role) but not for more complex tasks – the hub becomes overwhelmed, delays and mis-communications occur, frustration and stress increase, andperipheral members feel loss of autonomy.

Leadership

The most basic role differentiation within groups is into leadersand followers. Are some people ‘born to lead’ (think of LadyMargaret Thatcher, Sir Ernest Shackleton or Sir Alex Ferguson),or do they acquire leadership personalities that predispose themto leadership in many situations?

Extensive research has revealed that there are almost no per-sonality traits that are reliably associated with effective leadershipin all situations (Yukl, 1998). This finding suggests that many of uscan be effective leaders, given the right match between our lead-ership style and the situation. For example, leader categorizationtheory (Lord & Maher, 1991) states that we have leadershipschemas (concerning what the leader should do and how) for dif-ferent group tasks, and that we categorize people as effectiveleaders on the basis of their ‘fit’ to the task-activated schema. A

roles patterns of behaviour that dis-tinguish between different activitieswithin a group, and that help to givethe group an efficient structure

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Some communication networks that have been studied experi-mentally. Source: Hewstone and Stroebe (2001), based onLeavitt (1951).

Figure 18.8

Are some people ‘born to lead’, or do they acquire leadershippersonalities that predispose them to leadership?

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conformist and attain leader-ship in a democratic mannertend to accumulate signific-ant idiosyncrasy credits thatthey can then expend oninnovation once they achieveleadership. In other words,you first have to conformbefore you can innovate. (For a different view to this one, see thesection below on ‘minority influence’.)

Leaders who have a highidiosyncrasy credit rating are imbued with charisma by the group, and may be ableto function as transforma-tional leaders (see chapter 20).Charismatic transformationalleaders are able to motivatefollowers to work for collective goals that transcend self-interestand transform organizations (Bass, 1998; Bryman, 1992). They areproactive, change-orientated, innovative, motivating and inspir-ing and have a vision or mission with which they infuse thegroup. Transformational leaders are also interested in others,able to create commitment to the group and can extract extraeffort from (and generally empower) members of the group.

HOW GROUPS INFLUENCE THEIR MEMBERS

We have seen how the presence of other people can make us lessinclined to help someone,and how other people canpersuade us to obey theirorders. Groups can also exertenormous influence on indi-viduals through the mediumof norms (Turner, 1991).

Group norms

Although group norms are relatively enduring, they do change inline with changing circumstances to prescribe attitudes, feelingsand behaviours that are appropriate for group members in a par-ticular context. Norms relating to group loyalty and centralaspects of group life are usually more specific, and have a morerestricted range of acceptable behaviour than norms relating tomore peripheral features of the group. High-status group mem-bers also tend to be allowed more deviation from group normsthan lower-status members (Sherif & Sherif, 1964).

Sherif (1935, 1936) carried out one of the earliest, and still mostconvincing, demonstrations of the impact of social norms, delib-erately using an ambiguous stimulus. He placed participantsalone or in groups of two or three in a completely darkenedroom. At a distance of about 5 m, a single and small stationarylight was presented to them. In the absence of reference points,the light appeared to move rather erratically in all directions – a

variant of this idea, based onsocial identity theory (seebelow), is that in some groupswhat really matters is thatyou fit the group’s definingattributes and norms andthat, if you are categorized as a good fit, you will beendorsed as an effective leader(Hogg, 2001).

Perhaps the most enduringleadership theory in socialpsychology is Fiedler’s (1965)contingency theory. Fiedlerbelieved that the effective-ness of a particular leadership

style was contingent (or dependent) on situational and taskdemands. He distinguished between two general types of leader-ship style (people differ in terms of which style they naturallyadopt):

n a relationship-oriented style that focuses on the quality ofpeople’s relationships and their satisfaction with group life;and

n a task-oriented style that focuses on getting the task doneefficiently and well.

Relationship-oriented leaders are relaxed, friendly and sociable,and derive satisfaction from harmonious group relations. Task-oriented leaders are more aloof and directive, are not concernedwith whether the group likes them, and derive satisfaction fromtask accomplishment.

Fiedler measured leadership style using his ‘least preferred co-worker’ (LPC) scale. The idea is to measure how positively aleader views the co-worker that they hold in lowest esteem. Hepredicted that relationship-oriented leaders would be much morepositive about their least preferred co-worker than task-orientedleaders. So, for relationship-oriented leaders, even the least-likedgroup member is still quite liked.

Fiedler was also able to classify situations in terms of howmuch control was required for the group task to be effectivelyexecuted. A substantial amount of research has shown that task-oriented leaders are superior to relationship-oriented leaderswhen situational control is very low (i.e. poorly structured task,disorganized group) or very high (i.e. clearly structured task,highly organized group). But relationship-oriented leaders do better in situations with intermediate levels of control (Strube & Garcia, 1981).

Fiedler’s model of leadership is, however, a little static. Otherapproaches have focused instead on the dynamic transactionalrelationship between leaders and followers (Hollander, 1985).According to these approaches, people who are disproportion-ately responsible for helping a group achieve its goals are sub-sequently rewarded by the group with the trappings of leadership,in order to restore equity. Hollander (1958) suggested that part of the reward for such individuals is their being able to be relat-ively idiosyncratic and innovative. So, people who are highly

social identity theory theory of groupmembership and intergroup relationswhich explains much intergroup beha-viour in terms of the desire to belong to groups which are valued positivelycompared to other non-membershipgroups

contingency theory Fiedler’s inter-actionist theory, specifying that theeffectiveness of particular leadershipstyles depends on situational and taskfactors

idiosyncrasy credits Hollander’s trans-actional theory proposes that followersreward leaders for achieving groupgoals by allowing them to be relativelyidiosyncratic in their behaviour andopinions

transformational leader a leader seenby followers as being endowed withexceptional personal qualities, and whoworks to change or transform followers’needs and redirect their thinking

norms attitudes and behaviours thatgroup members are expected to showuniformly; these define group member-ship and differentiate between groups

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perceptual illusion known asthe autokinetic effect.

Sherif asked his particip-ants to call out an estimate ofthe extent of movement ofthe light, obviously without

informing them of the autokinetic effect. Half of the participantsmade their first 100 judgements alone. On three subsequent daysthey went through three more sets of trials, but this time ingroups of two or three. For the other half of the participants, theprocedure was reversed. They underwent the three group ses-sions first and ended with a session alone.

Participants who first made their judgements alone developedrather quickly a standard estimate (a personal norm) aroundwhich their judgements fluctuated. This personal norm was sta-ble within individuals, but it varied highly between individuals. In the group phases of the experiment, which brought togetherpeople with different personal norms, participants’ judgementsconverged towards a more or less common position – a ‘groupnorm’. With the reverse procedure employed with the other halfof the participants, this group norm developed in the first sessionand persisted into the later session, when participants were evalu-ated alone.

Figure 18.9 illustrates both sets of findings. The funnel effect inthe left panel reveals the convergence in the (median) judge-ments of three participants who first judged alone (session I) thenlater on in each other’s presence (sessions II, III and IV). The rightpanel shows the judgements of a group of three participants whowent through the procedure in the reverse order (i.e. first judgedtogether, then alone). Here the group convergence is already pre-sent in the first session, and there is no sign of funnelling out inthe final ‘alone’ session.

In subsequent studies, Sherif found that, once established, thisgroup norm persisted, and that it strongly influenced the estima-tions of new members of the group.

In another study, Jacobs and Campbell (1961) used a group ofconfederates who unanimously agreed upon a particular judge-ment. After every 30 judgements, they replaced a confederate

by a naive participant until the whole group was made up ofnaive participants. Their results indicated that the norm had asignificant effect on the naive participants’ judgements, even after all the confederates had been removed from the judgementsituation.

Conformity

Sherif ’s autokinetic experiments show how norms develop andinfluence people – but the actual process through which peopleconform is less obvious. The participants in Sherif’s study werepublicly calling out their estimates of a highly ambiguous stimu-lus. Perhaps they were worried about looking foolish, or weresimply uncertain. People may have conformed for one of tworeasons, each linked to a distinct form of social influence(Deutsch & Gerard, 1955):

1. They may have been concerned about social evaluation(e.g. being liked or being thought badly of ) by the others in the group (normativeinfluence).

2. They may have usedthe other group mem-bers’ judgements asuseful information toguide them in an ambi-guous task on whichthey had no previousexperience (informa-tional influence).

A series of experiments by Asch (1951, 1952, 1956) tried to rule out informational influence by using clearly unambiguousstimuli. In his first study, Asch invited students to participate in an experiment on visual discrimination. Their task was simpleenough: they would have to decide which of three comparisonlines was equal in length to a standard line. On each trial, one

autokinetic effect optical illusion inwhich a stationary point of light shiningin complete darkness appears to moveabout

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Median estimates of movement under solitary (I) or group (II, III,IV) conditions (left), and under group (I, II, III) or solitary (IV) con-ditions (right) in a research study on norm formation which usedthe autokinetic phenomenon. Source: Hewstone and Stroebe(2001), based on Sherif (1935).

Pioneer

Muzafer Sherif (1906–78) made ground-breaking contribu-tions to the psychology of attitudes, the study of groupnorms and intergroup relations. Born in Izmir, Turkey, hetook a higher degree at Harvard and spent most of his lifeas professor at the University of Oklahoma. His researchwork on the development of group norms (using theautokinetic phenomenon) showed that other group mem-bers provide us with a frame of reference – especially, butnot only, when stimuli are ambiguous. His Robber’s Cavestudy demonstrated the powerful impact of goals on inter-group relations, and showed that group conflict is easier toinduce than reduce. This research contributed to the devel-opment of his Realistic Group Conflict Theory.

normative influence social influencebased on the need to be accepted andapproved of by other group members

informational influence social influ-ence based on acquiring new informa-tion from other group members, whichis accepted as evidence about reality

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coalition or subgroup) are seemingly treated as a single source.Conformity is significantly reduced if the majority is not unani-mous. Dissenters and deviates of almost any type can producethis effect. For example, Allen and Levine (1971) showed thatconformity is even reduced by a deviate who has visibly thicklenses in his glasses, although this ‘invalid’ supporter had muchless impact than a ‘valid’ supporter with no glasses (see figure 18.11).

Minority influence

For most of us, conformity means coming into line with majorityattitudes and behaviours. But what about minority influence?

Minorities face a social influence challenge. By definition, theyhave relatively few members; they also tend to enjoy little power,

comparison line was equal in length to the standard line, but theother two were different (see figure 18.10).

The task was apparently very easy: a control group (who madetheir judgements in isolation) made almost no errors, ruling outthe informational influence component of this study. In theexperimental condition, participants were seated in a semicircleand requested to give their judgements aloud, in the order inwhich they were seated, from position 1 to position 7. In fact,there was only one real participant, seated in position 6. All theother ‘participants’ were in fact confederates of the experimenterwho, on each trial, unanimously gave a predetermined answer.On six ‘neutral’ trials (the first two trials and four other trials distributed over the remaining set), the confederates gave correctanswers. On the other 12 ‘critical’ trials, the confederates unani-mously agreed on a predetermined, incorrect line. The neutraltrials, particularly the first two trials, were added to avoid suspi-cion on the part of the real participant, and to ensure that the confederates’ responses were not attributed to poor eyesight bythe participant.

Like Milgram’s obedience study, this paradigm had a tangibleimpact on the real participants. They showed signs of being un-comfortable and upset, gave the experimenter and the other parti-cipants nervous looks, sweated nervously and gesticulated in vain.

The results reveal the powerful influence of an obviouslyincorrect but unanimous majority on the judgements of a loneparticipant. In comparison with the control condition (whichyielded only 0.7 per cent errors), the experimental participantsmade almost 37 per cent errors. Not every participant made that

many errors, but only about25 per cent of Asch’s 123 participants did not make asingle error. Presumably, conformity was producedthrough normative socialinfluence operating in theline judgement task.

Subsequent Asch-type experiments have investigated howmajority influence varies over a range of social situations (e.g.Allen, 1975; Wilder, 1977). These studies found that conformityreaches full strength with three to five apparently independentsources of influence. Larger groups of independent sources arenot stronger, which perhaps runs counter to our intuitions, andnon-independent sources (e.g. several members of the same

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An example of the stimuli presented in Asch’s (1956) researchon conformity. Source: Hewstone and Stroebe (2001).

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conformity social influence resultingfrom exposure to the opinions of amajority of group members and/or toan authority figure – typically superficialand short-lived

Pioneer

Solomon E. Asch (1907–96) was born in Warsaw, Poland,and received his Ph.D. from Columbia University in theUnited States, where he was influenced by Wertheimerand the Gestalt approach. He taught at Swarthmore Collegefor 19 years, and is best known for his famous experimentson conformity (or ‘Group forces in the modification anddistortion of judgements’). These studies show that mostpeople succumb to the pressure to conform to majorityopinion, even when stimuli are unambiguous. Asch influ-enced many subsequent social psychologists and theirresearch, including Milgram’s classic studies of obedience,and wrote a distinctive and authoritative textbook on SocialPsychology, first published in 1952 and reprinted in 1987.

Figure 18.11

Conformity as a function of social support. Source: Hewstoneand Stroebe (2001), based on Allen and Levine (1971).

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can be vilified as outsiders, hold ‘unorthodox’ opinions, and havelimited access to mainstream mass communication channels. Andyet minorities often prevail, bringing about social change.

Research suggests that minorities must actively create andaccentuate conflict to draw attention to themselves and achieveinfluence (Moscovici, 1976; Mugny, 1982). Members of themajority may be persuaded to move in the direction of the minor-ity, in order to reduce the conflict they provoke. To have animpact, minorities need to present a message that is consistentacross group members and through time, but not rigidly presented. Minorities are also more effective if they appear to beacting on principle and making personal sacrifices for their beliefs.These strategies disrupt majority consensus and raise uncer-tainty, draw attention to the minority as a group that is commit-ted to its perspective, and convey a coherent alternativeviewpoint that challenges the dominant majority views. It alsohelps if the minority can present itself as an ingroup for themajority. For example, you might be opposed to increased tuitionfees at university. But a minority of students from your own uni-versity (an ingroup minority) could conceivably win you roundby arguing that such fees would provide bursaries for less well-offstudents.

The film Twelve Angry Men provides a dramatic fictitious ex-ample of how minority influence occurs. Twelve jurors have todecide over the guilt or innocence of a young man charged withthe murder of his father. At the outset, all but one of the jurorsare convinced of the youth’s guilt. The lone juror (played byHenry Fonda) actively attempts to change their minds, standingfirm, committed, self-confident and unwavering. One by one theother jurors change sides, until in the end they all agree that theaccused is not guilty.

Other examples of minority influence include Bob Geldof ’sBand Aid movement to raise money for famine relief, and newforms of music and fashion.

Moscovici (1980) proposed a dual-process theory of major-ity/minority influence. He suggested that people conform tomajority views fairly automatically, superficially and withoutmuch thought because they are informationally or normatively

dependent on the majority.In contrast, effective minorit-ies influence by conversion. The deviant message achieves little influence in public, butit is processed systematically to produce influence (e.g.

attitude change) that emerges later, in private and indirectly.Subsequent research has demonstrated minority influence

occurring after the main part of the experiment has finished, i.e.later, revealed by written answers rather than spoken responses,i.e. in private, and on indirectly related issues as opposed to thetarget issue, e.g. attitude change regarding euthanasia, followingdirect influence on the topic of abortion (see Wood et al., 1994).

Support for Moscovici’s dual-process theory is mixed. Usingthe framework of cognitive theories of persuasion (see discussionof the ‘elaboration likelihood model’ in chapter 17), it appearsthat both minorities and majorities can instigate either super-ficial or systematic processing of their message, depending on

situational factors and constraints. But overall, the weight of evidence is tipped slightly towards Moscovici’s claim that minor-ities instigate deeper processing of their message (see Martin &Hewstone, 2003a, b).

Nemeth (1986, 1995) proposed that minorities induce moredivergent thinking (thinking beyond a focal issue), whereasmajorities induce more convergent thinking (concentrating narrowly on the focal issue). Evidence supporting this contentionreveals that exposure to a consistent, dissenting minority leads togeneration of more creative and novel judgements or solutions to problems, use of multiple strategies in problem solving, andbetter performance on tasks that benefit from divergent thinking(Nemeth & Kwan, 1987). In contrast, convergent thinking inducedby majorities tends to lead to mere imitation of the belief orcourse of action that is proposed by the majority source.

HOW GROUPS GET THINGS DONE

Most groups exist to get things done, including making decisionsand collaborating on group projects. Working in groups has someobvious attractions – more hands are involved, the humanresource pool is enlarged, and there are social benefits. Yet groupperformance is often worse than you might expect.

Potential group gains in effectiveness and creativity seem to beoffset by negative characteristics of group performance, includingthe tendency to let others do the work, sub-optimal decision mak-ing, and becoming more extreme as a group than as individualmembers. As we shall see, some of these drawbacks are due toproblems of coordination, and others are due to reduced indi-vidual motivation (Steiner, 1972).

Social loafing

Individual motivation can suffer in groups, particularly where the task is relatively meaningless and uninvolving, the group islarge and unimportant, andeach individual’s contributionto the group is not personallyidentifiable (Williams, Harkins& Latané, 1981). This pheno-menon has been termedsocial loafing (Latané, Williams& Harkins, 1979) (see chap-ter 20).

Latané and colleagues asked experimental participants (whowere blindfolded and wearing headsets that played loud noise) toshout as loudly as they could under three conditions: as a singleindividual, as a member of a dyad or as a member of a six-persongroup. In a further twist, this experiment also manipulatedwhether participants actually did shout either alone or in thepresence of one or five other group members (‘real groups’), orwere merely led to believe that they were cheering with one orfive others (while, in fact, they were shouting alone; so-called‘pseudo-groups’). The blindfolds and the headphones made thisdeception possible.

conversion a change in covert (private)opinion after exposure to others’ opin-ions (who often represent a minoritywithin the group)

social loafing a reduction in individualeffort when working on a collectivetask (in which one’s outputs are pooledwith those of other group members),compared with when one is workingalone

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on social decision schemesidentifies a number of implicitor explicit decision-makingrules that groups can adoptto transform diversity into agroup decision (Stasser, Kerr& Davis, 1989). These include:

unanimity – discussion puts pressure on deviants to conform;majority wins – discussion confirms the majority position,

which becomes the group decision;truth wins – discussion reveals the position that is demonstrably

correct; andtwo-thirds majority – discussion establishes a two-thirds majority,

which becomes the group decision.

The type of rule that is adopted can affect both the group atmosphere and the decision-making process (Miller, 1989). For

Although groups obviously produced more noise in total thansingle individuals, group productivity failed to reach its full poten-tial, since it was found that individual productivity decreased asgroup size increased. In figure 18.12, the dashed line along the toprepresents the potential performance we would expect if therewere no losses or gains as individuals were combined into groups.The line marked ‘real groups’ shows actual group performance.

By creating both real and pseudo groups, Latané et al. wereable to estimate how much performance loss was due to coordina-tion and motivation losses (about 50 per cent was in fact due to each). Any productivity loss observed in the pseudo groupscould only be attributed to reduced motivation, not faulty coordination, since there were no ‘co-workers’ engaged in theshouting. In the real groups, however, coordination loss couldoccur due to the physical phenomenon of ‘sound cancellation’ –when multiple sources produce sound, some of it is cancelled outby other sound.

Subsequent research using this and similar paradigms hasshown that social loafing is minimized when groups work onchallenging and involving tasks, and when group membersbelieve that their own inputs can be fully identified and evaluatedthrough comparison with fellow members (Harkins & Jackson,1985) or with another group (Harkins & Szymanski, 1989). Infact, when people work either on important tasks or in groupswhich are important to them, they may even work harder collec-tively than alone – so, in these circumstances, ‘social loafing’turns into ‘social striving’ (Gabrenya, Wang & Latané, 1985;Williams, Karau & Bourgeois, 1993; Zaccaro, 1984).

Group decision making

An important group function is to reach a collective decision,through discussion, from an initial diversity of views. Research

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Intensity of sound generated per person (as proportion of indi-vidual potential) when cheering as a single individual, or as amember of real or pseudo two-person or six-person groups.Source: Hewstone and Stroebe (2001), based on Latané,Williams and Harkins (1979).

Figure 18.13

We often work harder on group activities, especially when thetask is challenging and involving.

social decision schemes explicit orimplicit decision rules specifying theprocesses by which individual inputsare combined into a group decision

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example, unanimity often creates a pleasant atmosphere but canmake decision making painfully slow, whereas ‘majority wins’can make many group members feel dissatisfied but speeds updecision making.

Juries provide an ideal context for research on decisionschemes. Not only are they socially relevant in their own right,but they can be simulated under controlled laboratory condi-tions. For example, Stasser, Kerr and Bray (1982) found that atwo-thirds majority rule prevails in many juries. Furthermore,they discovered that it was possible to predict accurately the outcome of jury deliberations from knowledge of the initial distribution of verdict preferences (‘initial’ here means before any discussion has taken place). If two thirds or more initiallyfavoured guilt, then that was the final verdict, but if there was initially no two-thirds majority, then the outcome was ahung jury.

Group polarization and ‘groupthink’

Popular opinion and research on conformity both suggest thatgroups are conservative and cautious entities, and that theyexclude extremes by a process of averaging. But two phenomenathat challenge this view are group polarization and groupthink.

Group polarization is thetendency for groups to makedecisions that are moreextreme than the average of pre-discussion opinions in the group, in the directiontowards the position origin-ally favoured by the aver-age (Lamm & Myers, 1978;

Myers, 1982). For example, four students whose averaged indi-vidual attitudes are mildly against abortion are likely to form anattitude as a group that is more extremely against abortion.Group polarization therefore makes group decisions more

extreme. Furthermore, it can sometimes shift individual members’enduring attitudes towards the more polarized group position.

The explanation for this lies partly in the same processes ofinformational and normative social influence we discussed earlier(Isenberg, 1986). Group members learn from other group mem-bers’ arguments, and engage in mutual persuasion, but they arealso influenced by where others stand on the issue, even if theydo not hear each other’s arguments.

This polarization is particularly likely to occur when an important group to which an individual belongs (i.e. an ingroup)confronts a salient group to which she does not belong (i.e. an outgroup) that holds an opposing view. Here, group mem-bers seem to conform to what they see as the prototypical view held by other ingroup members (i.e. the view or positionthat is most similar to that of all the other ingroup members, but most different from that of the outgroup members). It isthought that conformity to the prototypical view helps to dif-ferentiate the ingroup from the outgroup (Hogg, Turner &Davidson, 1990).

Finally, mere repetition of arguments, which also tends tooccur within groups (especially when the discussion lasts a longtime, and all group members wish to express their views) can alsoproduce polarization (Brauer & Judd, 1996).

Groupthink is a moreextreme phenomenon. Janis(1972) argued that highlycohesive groups that areunder stress, insulated fromexternal influence, and whichlack impartial leadership andnorms for proper decision-making procedures, adopt amode of thinking (groupthink) in which the desire for unanimityoverrides all else. The members of such groups apparently feel invulnerable, unanimous and absolutely correct. They alsodiscredit contradictory information, pressurize deviants andstereotype outgroups.

The consequences can be disastrous – particularly if the decision-making group is a government body. A dramatic exampleattributed to groupthink is the decision of NASA officials to pressahead with the launch of the space shuttle Challenger in 1986,despite warnings from engineers (see Esser & Lindoerfer, 1989).The shuttle crashed seconds into its flight (see next EverydayPsychology box).

Brainstorming

A popular method of har-nessing group potential isbrainstorming – the uninhib-ited generation of as manyideas as possible, regardlessof quality, in an interactivegroup (e.g. Stroebe & Diehl, 1994). Although it is commonlythought that brainstorming enhances individual creativity,research shows convincingly that this is not the case.

Figure 18.14

A jury rarely changes its overall decision during discussion.

group polarization tendency for groupdiscussion to produce more extremegroup decisions (in the same directionas the mean of the group) than wouldbe indicated by the mean of members’pre-discussion opinions

groupthink a mode of thinking inhighly cohesive groups in which thedesire to reach unanimous agreementoverrides the motivation to adoptappropriate, rational decision-makingprocedures

brainstorming technique of uninhib-ited generation of as many ideas as pos-sible in a group (concerning a specifictopic) to enhance group creativity

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lights, each light representing one specific group member. Theselights functioned like a set of traffic lights. As soon as one mem-ber of the four-person group started to speak, a voice-activatedsensor switched her light to green in all of the other three cubi-cles. Meanwhile the other three lights on the display were red.Each individual could only speak when his or her light was green,and all the other lights were red. This technology allowed theresearchers to create three different ‘alone’ conditions. In the‘alone, blocking, communication’ condition participants tooktheir turns following the lights, and were able to hear via the earphones what was being said by the other participants. In the‘alone, blocking, no communication’ condition participants also had to wait for their turn before expressing their ideas, butcould not hear each other’s ideas via the intercom. In the ‘alone,no blocking, no communication’ condition participants wereinstructed to disregard the lights and the intercom and to expresstheir ideas whenever they wanted to.

To compare the productivity of participants working underthese different conditions afterwards, Diehl and Stroebe pooledthe ideas expressed by the four individuals who brainstormed

Stroebe and Diehl considered various possible explanations forthis finding. They hypothesized that ‘process loss’ in brainstorm-ing groups is due to an informal coordination rule of such groupswhich specifies that only one group member may speak at a time.During this time, other group members have to keep silent, andthey may be distracted by the content of the group discussion, orforget their own ideas. Stroebe and Diehl termed this pheno-menon ‘production blocking’, because the waiting time beforespeaking and the distracting influence of others’ ideas could poten-tially block individuals from coming up with their own ideas.

Stroebe and Diehl tested their hypothesis by creating five dif-ferent conditions. In one condition, participants brainstormed inreal interacting four-person groups (‘interactive group’ condition).Participants in four other conditions were physically separatedfrom one another in different cubicles. Even though participantsin these conditions were seated alone, they expressed their ideasvia a clip-on microphone so that they could be tape-recorded. Inan ‘alone, individual, no communication’ condition participantsbrainstormed individually. In the three remaining ‘alone’ condi-tions, each cubicle contained an intercom and a display with

The Challenger and Columbia space shuttle disasters:consequences of groupthink?

NASA’s shuttle programme, initiated in the 1970s, aimed to create reusable spacecraft for transporting cargo and peopleinto space. Previous spacecraft (such as the Apollo series) could only be used once and were then discarded. The firstspace shuttle was launched in 1981. One year later, the second shuttle of the American fleet, Challenger, rolled off theassembly line and flew nine successful missions before the disaster of 1986.

Shuttle mission 51L was much like most other shuttle missions, but from the beginning it was plagued by problems, withseveral postponements (largely related to inclement weather). Then, 73 seconds after lift-off, Challenger exploded, killingthe entire crew.

The Challenger space shuttle disaster is frequently cited as an example of groupthink. It has been suggested that theorganizational culture of NASA in the early 1980s discouraged dissenting opinions and encouraged risk taking. As a result,the NASA management may not have thoroughly considered the possible danger of launching the Challenger on an unusu-ally cold day.

Seventeen years later, NASA faced a very similar situation. The official report on the 2003 Columbia space shuttle disaster, released by the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB), raised the fact that information about potentialshuttle damage caused by Columbia’s foam insulation never made it to the management level.

What doomed the Columbia and its crew, said the report, was not an inadequacy of technology or ability, but missedopportunities and a lack of leadership and open-mindedness within NASA management. The 2003 disaster was, accordingto the report, rooted in a flawed management culture that downplayed risk and suppressed dissent: ‘We are convinced thatthe management practices overseeing the space shuttle program were as much a cause of the accident as the foam thatstruck the left wing.’

The CAIB listed 15 recommendations that NASA must comply with before the next shuttle takes off. One of the changesis a new table for the Mission Management Team! The table is designed to encourage engineers to speak up when theyare concerned about a problem with the shuttle. According to a NASA spokesperson, ‘We are trying to encourage peopleto speak what’s on their mind, to bring us options, to bring us dissenting opinions.’

Esser, J.K., & Lindoerfer, J.S., 1989, ‘Groupthink and the space shuttle Challenger accident: Toward a quantitative caseanalysis’, Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 2, 167–77.

EverEveryday Psychologyyday Psychology

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Intergroup Relations 401401

alone and without communication, to make a ‘nominal group’product. Since the same idea might be suggested several times byfour people working alone, without communication, whereassuch repetition would not be allowed in case of free communica-tion, redundant ideas were eliminated from the pooled set ofideas that constituted the ‘nominal group’ product.

The results of this clever study were clear-cut. Participants generated approximately twice as many ideas when they wereallowed to express their ideas as they occurred (i.e. in the twonon-blocking conditions) than when they had to wait their turn(i.e. in the three blocking conditions). These results suggest that‘production blocking’ is indeed an important factor explaining theinferiority of interactive brainstorming groups. This suggests thatit may be more effective to ask group members to develop theirideas separately, and only then have these ideas expressed, dis-cussed and evaluated in a subsequent joint meeting (see Delbecq,van de Ven & Gustafson, 1975).

Of interest, electronic brainstorming (via computers linked ona network) can be very effective, because the lack of face-to-faceinteraction minimizes production blocking (Valachich, Dennis &Connolly, 1994).

Through the study of intergroup relations – how people in onegroup (the ‘ingroup’) think about and act towards members ofanother group (the ‘outgroup’) – social psychologists (e.g. Brewer& Brown, 1998; Hewstone, Rubin & Willis, 2002) seek to under-stand a range of critical issues, including:

n crowd behaviour;n cooperation and competition between groups;n social identity;n prejudice and discrimination; andn how to replace social conflict with social harmony.

DEINDIVIDUATION, COLLECTIVE BEHAVIOURAND THE CROWD

Many researchers have emphasized the tendency of group mem-bers to act in unison, like a single entity. Early writers on crowdbehaviour (who were not trained social psychologists) tended toview collective behaviour as irrational, aggressive, antisocial andprimitive – reflecting the emergence of a ‘group mind’ in collective/crowd situations (e.g. LeBon 1896/1908). The general model is

that people in interactivegroups such as crowds areanonymous and distracted,which causes them to losetheir sense of individualityand become deindividuated.

Deindividuation is thoughtto prevent people from

INTERGROUP RELATIONS

following the prosocial norms of society that usually governbehaviour, because they are no longer identifiable (and hence nolonger feel compelled to conform to social norms). It is arguedthat people regress to a primitive, selfish and uncivilized behavi-oural level. Research that has manipulated anonymity by placingpeople in dark rooms, or having them wear hoods and robes reminiscent of the Ku Klux Klan, has generally found that de-individuation does increase aggression and antisocial behaviour(Zimbardo, 1970). On the other hand, when participants weredeindividuated by wearing nursing uniforms, anonymity pro-duced more prosocial behaviour ( Johnson & Downing, 1979).

More recent research has discarded the idea that crowds areirrational, and has concentrated instead on understanding howpeople in crowds develop a shared identity, a shared purpose andshared norms (Turner & Killian, 1972). In crowd situations, peo-ple often identify very strongly with the group defined by thecrowd, and therefore adhere very closely to the norms of thecrowd (Reicher, 2001). Crowds may only appear irrational andfickle from the outside – more often than not, their behaviourseems rational to members of the crowd, who may also identifyspecific other groups (e.g. the police, ethnic/racial groups) as alegitimate target for aggression.

COOPERATION AND COMPETITIONBETWEEN GROUPS

Sherif (1966; Sherif et al., 1961; Sherif, White, & Harvey, 1955) provided a far-reaching and influential perspective on intergroupbehaviour. In a series of naturalistic field experiments on conflictand cooperation at boys’ camps in the United States in the early1950s, Sherif and colleagues studied group formation, intergroupcompetition and conflict reduction.

In the group-formation phase, Sherif divided new arrivals atthe camps into two groups and isolated them in separate living

deindividuation a psychological statein which rational control and adher-ence to norms is weakened, leading togreater readiness to respond in anextreme manner and to violate socialnorms

Figure 18.15

In a crowd, individuals will often identify very strongly with thegroup and adhere very closely to group norms.

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To explain his findings, Sherif focused on the importance ofgoals. Mutually exclusive goals cause competitive intergroupbehaviour, and superordin-ate goals improve intergrouprelations. As he pointed to thereal nature of goal relationsdeterminining intergroup be-haviour, Sherif ’s theory isoften called realistic conflicttheory.

But Sherif ’s studies alsofound that first expressions of ingroup favouritism occurred inthe group formation phase, when the groups were isolated fromone another and knew only of each other’s existence. So the mereexistence of two groups seemed to trigger intergroup behaviour,before any mutually exclusive goals had been introduced.

SOCIAL CATEGORIES AND SOCIAL IDENTITY

Experiments by Tajfel and colleagues provided the most con-vincing evidence that competitive goals are not a necessary con-dition for intergroup conflict. In fact, merely being categorized as a group member can cause negative intergroup behaviour(Tajfel, Flament, Billig & Bundy, 1971). In Tajfel’s studies, parti-cipants were randomly divided into two groups and asked to dis-tribute points or money between anonymous members of theirown group and anonymous members of the other group. Therewas no personal interaction, group members were anonymous,and the groups had no ‘past’ and no ‘future’ – for these reasonsthese groups are called ‘minimal groups’, and this experimental

quarters to allow them to develop their own internal structuresand norms.

In the intergroup competition phase, Sherif then brought thetwo groups together for a series of zero-sum competitions (whatone group won, the other group lost), such as tug-of-war. Thetypical finding at this stage was ‘ingroup favouritism’ – eachgroup judged fellow ingroup members’ performance to be super-ior to that of outgroup members (see figure 18.16).

Of especial note, the competitiveness of the between-groupinteractions subsequently pervaded all aspects of intergroupbehaviour, becoming so extreme and conflictual (e.g. involvingnegative stereotyping of, and aggression towards, the outgroup)that most of Sherif ’s studies had to be concluded at this stage. Ina replication conducted in the Lebanon, the study had to bestopped because members of one group came out with knives toattack the other group (Diab, 1970).

Having found it so easy to trigger intergroup hostility, in theconflict reduction phase Sherif discovered how hard it was to

reduce conflict. The mosteffective strategy was tointroduce a series of superord-inate goals, i.e. goals that both groups desired butcould only attain if they actedtogether. For example, whenthe camp truck broke down

delivering supplies, neither group could push-start it on theirown; but both groups working together managed to move thetruck by pulling on a rope attached to the front bumper. As figure18.17 shows, negative stereotypes of the outgroup which resultedafter a period of intergroup competition were considerably lessnegative after the manipulation of superordinate goals.

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Ingroup favouritism in estimates of performance by otheringroup and outgroup members during intergroup competition.Source: Hewstone and Stroebe (2001), from Sherif et al.(1961).

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Figure 18.17

Impact of competition vs. superordinate goals on negativestereotypes of the outgroup. Source: Hewstone and Stroebe(2001), from Sherif et al. (1961).

superordinate goals a goal desired bytwo or more groups, but which canonly be achieved by the groups actingtogether, not by any single group actingon its own

realistic conflict theory Sherif ’s theory of intergroup conflict, whichproposes that goal relations (e.g. com-petition vs. cooperation) determine thenature of intergroup relations (e.g.conflict vs. harmony)

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Intergroup Relations 403403

procedure is called the mini-mal group paradigm.

The consistent finding ofthis research is that the merefact of being categorized isenough to cause people to

discriminate in favour of the ingroup and against the outgroup.This research spawned the ‘social identity perspective’ on

group processes and intergroup relations (Tajfel & Turner, 1986;see also Hogg & Abrams, 1988). According to this perspective,the groups that we belong to define who we are. Part of our iden-tity and how we feel about ourselves is derived from the groupswe belong to, and how we evaluate them. When we categorizeourselves and others in groups, we stereotype ourselves and out-group members in terms of our respective group memberships,and our own group identity helps to determine our attitudes, feelings and behaviours. This process produces a sense of groupidentification and belonging, as well as ingroup solidarity, con-formity and bias.

According to this social identity perspective, because groupsdefine and evaluate who we are, intergroup relations are a con-tinual struggle to gain superiority for the ingroup over the out-group. How the struggle is conducted – and the specific nature ofintergroup behaviour (e.g. competitive, conflictual, destructivelyaggressive) – is thought to depend on people’s beliefs about thestatus relations between groups. Are status relations betweengroups stable or unstable, legitimate or illegitimate? And is it pos-sible to pass from one group to another (see Tajfel, 1978)?

PREJUDICE AND DISCRIMINATION

Some of the most negative forms of intergroup behaviour aredemonstrations of prejudice and discrimination. Prejudice refersto a derogatory attitude towards a group and its members,whereas discrimination refers to negative behaviour. The two areoften closely interconnected.

Prejudiced personalities

Some theories of prejudice focus on personality, arguing that thereare certain personality types that predispose people to intoleranceand prejudice. The best knownof these theories concernsthe authoritarian personality(Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik,Levinson & Sanford, 1950).According to this view, harshfamily rearing strategies pro-duce a love–hate conflict inchildren’s feelings towards their parents. The conflict is resolvedby idolizing all power figures, despising weaker others and striv-ing for a rigidly unchanging and hierarchical world order. Peoplewith this personality syndrome are predisposed to be prejudiced.

This ‘personality’ approach has now been largely discredited,partly because it underestimates the importance of current situ-ations in shaping people’s attitudes, and partly because it cannotexplain sudden rises or falls in prejudice against specific racialgroups (Brown, 1995). On the other hand, a fairly small numberof people do hold generalized negative attitudes towards all out-groups (e.g. the stereotypical bigot who dislikes blacks, Asians,gays and communists), and authoritarianism is indeed associatedwith various forms of prejudice (Altemeyer, 1988).

Society and identity

Contrary to personality explanations, by far the best predictor ofprejudice is the existence of a culture of prejudice legitimized bysocietal norms. For example, Pettigrew (1958) measured author-itarianism and racist attitudes among whites in South Africa, thenorthern United States and the southern United States. He foundmore racist attitudes in South Africa and the southern UnitedStates than in the northern United States, but he found no differ-ences in authoritarianism between these two groups.

How do such prejudiced ‘cultures’ arise? Both social identitytheory (e.g. Tajfel & Turner, 1986) and social dominance theory(Pratto, 1999; Sidanius & Pratto, 1999) may provide part of theanswer.

According to social identity theory, group members strive topromote a favourable identity for their group. They do this bymaximizing their group’s real status advantage over other groups,and by developing belief systems that justify and legitimize theirsuperiority. Group members achieve or maintain a positive socialidentity by differentiating their group from outgroups.

From the perspective of social dominance theory, people alsodiffer in their social dominance orientation (SDO) – the extent towhich they desire their own group to be dominant and superiorto outgroups. According to this framework, people who have ahigh SDO are likely to be more prejudiced (Pratto, 1999).

Modern forms of prejudice

Prejudiced attitudes are often deeply entrenched, may be passedfrom parents to children and are supported by the views of

Pioneer

Henri Tajfel (1919–82) was born in Wloclawek, Poland.He escaped from the Nazis to join the French army andowed his life to being captured in this uniform – it meantthat he was treated as a (French) prisoner of war, ratherthan being sent to the death camps as a Polish Jew. Thisexperience taught him the impact of social categorization.He came to the UK and studied at Birkbeck College, thentaught at Oxford University before becoming the firstProfessor of Social Psychology at the University of Bristol.It was here that the first minimal group experiments werecarried out, which showed that mere social categorizationcould affect intergroup behaviour. These studies stimu-lated the development of social identity theory, the mostsignificant influence of European social psychology on thediscipline as a whole.

authoritarian personality a particulartype of personality (originating in child-hood and oversubmissive to authorityfigures) that predisposes individuals tobe prejudiced

minimal group paradigm an experi-mental procedure designed to investigatethe isolated effect of social categoriza-tion on intergroup behaviour

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contact between equal-status members of the two groups in a situation that allows them to get to know each other on morethan a superficial basis, and with the support of relevant socialgroups and authorities.

Contact appears to work best by reducing ‘intergroup anxiety’about meeting members of the other group (Voci & Hewstone,2003) and by promoting positive intergroup orientations, such asempathy and perspective taking (Batson et al., 1997).

One difficulty is that, even if they do come to view some indi-viduals from the other group more positively, participants in suchstudies do not necessarily generalize their positive perceptionsbeyond the specific contact situation or contact partners withwhom they have engaged, to the group as a whole (Hewstone &Brown, 1986).

Recent work supports the idea that clear group affiliationsshould be maintained in contact situations, and that participatingmembers should be seen as being (at least to some extent) typicalof their groups (Brown & Hewstone, in press). Only under thesecircumstances does it appear that cooperative contact is likely tolead to more positive ratings of the outgroup as a whole.

A further limitation is that optimal intergroup contact may behard to bring about on a large scale. Wright and colleagues there-fore proposed an ‘extended contact effect’, in which knowledgethat a fellow ingroup member has a close relationship with anoutgroup member is used as a catalyst to promote more positiveintergroup attitudes (Wright, Aron, McLaughlin-Volpe & Ropp,1997). This extended contact is therefore second-hand, ratherthan involving the participants in direct intergroup contact them-selves, and so could potentially bring about widespread reduc-tions in prejudice without everyone having to develop outgroupfriendships (which anyway may be impracticable, depending onthe nature of the groups).

Paolini, Hewstone, Cairns and Voci (2004) have recently shownthat, by reducing intergroup anxiety, both direct and extendedforms of contact contribute towards more positive views of theoutgroup among Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland.

Decategorization and recategorization

Prejudice depends on ingroup–outgroup categorizations. So ifthe categorization disappears, then so should the prejudice. Is thisthe case, and are these kinds of interventions practical?

There are various ways in which dissolution of categoriesmight occur, two of the most prominent being:

1. decategorization, where people from different groupscome to view each other as individuals (Brewer & Miller,1984); and

2. recategorization, where people from different subgroups,such as Scots and English, come to view each other asmembers of a single superordinate group, such as British(see Gaertner, Dovidio, Anastasio, Bachman & Rust, 1993).

Decategorization can be difficult to achieve when groups arevery obviously different (e.g. Muslim girls and women who wearheadscarves, compared with non-Muslims who typically do not),and where feelings run high it can be almost impossible to

significant others. Yet societal norms for acceptable behaviourcan and do change, sometimes creating a conflict between per-sonal feelings and how they can be expressed.

For example, modern liberal norms and legislation in theUnited States stand against prejudice, and yet centuries of his-tory have entrenched racist attitudes in US society. Researcherssuggest that, rather than abolishing prejudice, this dynamic transforms overt ‘redneck’ prejudice into more ‘modern’ forms(Gaertner & Dovidio, 1986; McConahay, 1986). Modern preju-dice often presents itself as denial of the claim that minorities aredisadvantaged, opposition to special measures to rectify disad-vantage, and systematic avoidance of minorities and the entirequestion of prejudice against these minorities.

New, more subtle measures are required to detect these mod-ern forms of prejudice (Pettigrew & Meertens, 1995). For exam-ple, increasing use is being made of implicit measures (see chapter17), which are beyond the intentional control of the individual,and so can detect prejudice even when people are aware of societal norms regarding tolerance or political correctness (seeCunningham, Preacher & Banaji, 2001). Research using the‘Implicit Association Test’ (Greenwald, McGhee & Schwartz,1998) has shown that white Americans have relatively strongautomatic negative associations with African Americans, but pos-itive associations with whites (they respond faster to pairings ofwhite faces with ‘good’ words and black faces with ‘bad’ words,than to pairings of white faces wth ‘bad’ words and black faceswith ‘good’ words).

BUILDING SOCIAL HARMONY

Prejudice and conflict are significant social ills that produce enor-mous human suffering, ranging from damaged self-esteem, re-duced opportunities, stigma and socio-economic disadvantage, all the way to intergroup violence, war and genocide (Crocker,Major & Steele, 1998; Hewstone & Cairns, 2001).

Prejudice can be attacked by public service propaganda andeducational campaigns, which convey societal disapproval of pre-judice and may overcome some of the anxiety and fear that fuelit. But the problem with these strategies is that the very peoplebeing targeted may choose not to attend to the new information.Two prominent social-psychological approaches to building socialharmony avoid this problem by promoting increased positiveintergroup contact and changing the nature of social categoriza-tion (Hewstone, 1996).

Intergroup contact

There is now extensive evid-ence for the contact hypothesis,which states that contactbetween members of differ-ent groups, under appropri-ate conditions, can improve

intergroup relations (G.W. Allport, 1954; see Pettigrew, 1998, for a recent review). Favourable conditions include cooperative

contact hypothesis the idea that con-tact between members of differentgroups, under specified conditions,reduces prejudice and hostility

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Changing prejudice through intergroup contactThe research issue

In the first of three experiments on intergroup contact, Wilder considered what form of contact is required to improve atti-tudes towards, and stereotypes about, an outgroup.

Wilder highlighted a problem with stereotyping. When an outgroup member behaves in a negative way during intergroup con-tact, the effect is simply to reinforce existing negative expectations about the outgroup as a whole. And yet when an outgroupmember behaves in such a way as to disconfirm the stereotype, people holding the stereotyped view often react, not bychanging their view of the outgroup as a whole, but by considering the positive outgroup member as ‘the exception to the rule’.

In order to overcome this tendency, Wilder suggested that intergroup contact should involve members of the outgroupwho are clearly perceived to be ‘typical’ of that group. Only then will positive contact with those few members ‘generalize’to a new, more positive view of the outgroup as a whole.

Design and procedureParticipants were 62 female students from two rival colleges. A quasi-experimental design capitalized on one pre-existingfactor and manipulated the two remaining factors between subjects:

n college identity of the outgroup member (Douglass College/Rutgers College);n behaviour of the outgroup member (‘positive’/‘negative’); andn typicality of the outgroup member (‘typical’/‘atypical’).

Participants were randomly assigned to one level of each of the latter two independent variables. Participants always experi-enced contact with a single member of the outgroup (in fact, a conferate of the experimenter). Data were later collapsedacross college affiliation since this factor was shown to be non-significant in the data analysis. There was also a controlcondition, which involved neither contact nor presence of an outgroup member. Each experimental pair (one naïve particip-ant and the confederate) met briefly as students from the two rival colleges. During this phase information was exchanged,and the confederate presented herself as either typical or atypical of the outgroup by means of her dress and what shesaid. They then completed a set of problem-solving tasks in separate booths and compared their responses by exchanginganswer sheets between the booths. The confederate’s answers and comments on this task were used to manipulate thesecond factor, pleasant vs unpleasant contact.

Results and implicationsBefore analysing the main data, Wilder verified that he had successfully manipulated both typicality and pleasantness ofcontact. Wilder analysed two main measures. The first were evaluations of the outgroup college (attitudes) – e.g. the ratedquality of education at each college (from poor to excellent). The second were beliefs about characteristics of the outgroup(stereotypes) – e.g. ratings of the other college’s students as conservative–liberal and studious–frivolous.

There was evidence that evaluation of the outgroup was most positive in the ‘typical’ member/‘pleasant’ contact condi-tion. This rating was significantly different from the control condition (see figure 18.18). There was, however, almost no evidence that the contact manipulations affected participants’ stereotypes. So it seems that beliefs about the outgroup areharder to change than evaluations of the outgroup.

Wilder’s results gave broad support to his main hypotheses, and were crucial in highlighting the importance of typicalityin intergroup contact. But a limitation of the main study is that there was no actual contact between group members:

instead, they simply passed information on answersheets between their separate booths. In this way,interpersonal interaction was carefully controlled inthe study, but perhaps participants never felt they had really ‘seen’ enough of the other group member towarrant changing their stereotypes.

Wilder, D.A., 1984, ‘Intergroup contact: The typicalmember and the exception to the rule’, Journal ofExperimental Social Psychology, 20, 177–94.

ResearResearch close-up 2ch close-up 2

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Generalization of pleasant vs. unpleasant contactwith a typical outgroup member. Source: Wilder (1984).

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example is the Barbarians invitation rugby team, which regularlyplays matches against visiting international teams to the UK.They all wear the same famous blue-and-white hooped shirts, butthey each wear the socks of their club team. So subgroup (club)identities are effectively viewed as complementary and valuedroles within a larger, superordinate identity – the Barbarians.

At the societal level this notion relates to the social policy ofmulticulturalism or cultural pluralism, in which group differencesare recognized and nurtured within a common superordinateidentity that stresses cooperative interdependence and diversity.This notion has been especially cultivated in some societies andcountries, especially ‘immigrant countries’ such as Australia,New Zealand and Canada.

prevent intergroup categorizations from coming to the fore.Recategorization may be more attainable, but it can still bedifficult to get people from opposing groups with a history ofantipathy and conflict to regard themselves as members of onesuperordinate group. (This is part of the problem in NorthernIreland, for example.) Recategorization can also pose a threat tosocial identity at the subgroup level, because people do not wantto abandon their cherished subgroup identities for more general(and less distinctive) superordinate identities.

A more successful strategy may be a combination of a super-ordinate identity and distinctive subgroup identities, so that each group preserves its distinctive subgroup identity within acommon, superordinate identity (Hornsey & Hogg, 2000). A nice

Clearly, our behaviour is influenced in complex ways by other people and the groups to which they belong. Sometimes the presence ofother people can improve our performance and judgement, but sometimes their presence worsens it. Sometimes other people canencourage us to intervene and help others; sometimes they inhibit us. The outcome depends on a complex weighing up of ‘costs’ and‘benefits’ of intervening vs. not intervening. And sometimes they can make us behave in ways of which we would never have thoughtourselves capable.

The social support of others can, then, be a source of physical and psychological strength. It can help us to resist pressures to conformto group norms, or give us the moral courage to disobey orders from an authority figure. But the social categorization that is a commonconsequence of group membership can also be a source of prejudice and conflict. The role of psychological research can here serve a veryimportant professional and public role: by understanding the underlying processes, social psychology can contribute towards greater soci-etal harmony by reducing prejudice and conflict.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Summaryn There is a wide range of evidence regarding the effects of other people on social behaviour.n We have highlighted some of the key theories in interpersonal relations, group processes and intergroup relations, and we have

summarized the methods and findings of some of the most important studies.n Generally, performing a task in the presence of other people improves performance on easy tasks, but impairs performance on

difficult tasks.n People are more likely to help if they are on their own, or with friends. The presence of multiple bystanders inhibits interven-

tion because responsibility is diffused and the costs of not helping are reduced.n People are especially likely to obey orders from a legitimate authority figure, and when others are obedient.n We are motivated to seek the company of others to compare ourselves with them, reduce anxiety and acquire new informa-

tion from them. Social support from others provides a ‘buffer’ against stress.n Close interpersonal relationships can be analysed in terms of social exchange of goods, love, information and so on. Happy

close relationships are characterized by high intimacy, whereas distressed relationships tend to involve reciprocation of negat-ive behaviour.

n We join social groups for multiple reasons, and frequently define ourselves, in part, as group members. This social identitydevelops over a series of stages, in which we are socialized into groups.

n Groups are typically structured into roles, of which the distinction between leader and followers is central. Group influence isaffected by norms, and both majorities and minorities within groups can exert influence, albeit in different ways.

n Performance of groups is often worse than performance of individuals, because potential gains in effectiveness are offset bysocial loafing and poor decision making. Decisions made in groups tend to be more extreme than individual decisions, some-times with disastrous consequences. Individuals are also less creative in groups, because their ideas are blocked by those ofother group members.

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Revision Questions 407407

FURTHER READING

Baron, R.S., & Kerr, N.L. (2002). Group Process, Group Decision, Group Action. 2nd edn. Buckingham: Open University Press.An excellent review of key theories and studies in the area of group performance and decision making.

Bierhoff, H-W. (2002). Prosocial Behaviour. Hove: Psychology Press.Includes detailed coverage of the main theories of, and processes underlying, prosocial behaviour and their applications.

Brewer, M.B. (2003). Intergroup Relations. 2nd edn. Buckingham: Open University Press.A clear account of phenomena relating to intergroup conflict and its resolution.

Brown, R.J. (1995). Prejudice: Its Social Psychology. Oxford: Blackwell.Thorough and readable overview of the foundations of prejudice and how to reduce it.

Fletcher, G. (2002). The New Science of Intimate Relationships. Oxford: Blackwell.An authoritative survey including major theories of relationships and the processes involved in the development of intimate relationships.

Turner, J.C. (1991). Social Influence. Buckingham: Open University Press.An integrative account of majority/minority influence and group polarization from the perspective of self-categorization theory.

Contributing authors: Miles Hewstone and Michael Hogg

1. Why does the presence of other people tend to improve performance on easy, well-learned tasks, butworsen it on difficult, poorly learned tasks?

2. What processes explain bystander apathy in the presence of other people?3. What are some of the main types of coordination losses and motivation losses in group performance,

and how could they be overcome?4. Discuss the role of norms within groups, and explain how they develop and change.5. Are competitive goals necessary or sufficient conditions for creating intergroup conflict?6. What kinds of intergroup contact can promote prejudice reduction, and how?

REVISION QUESTIONS

n In larger groups we may find ourselves influenced by other members of a crowd, due to shared norms and a shared identity,but crowds are not necessarily irrational.

n Behaviour between members of different groups may be competitive, especially where goals are incompatible, but ingroupfavouritism can be triggered by the mere existence of two groups, and the development of social identity as a group member.

n Excesses of intergroup behaviour are revealed in prejudice and discrimination, which sometimes take subtle forms in contem-porary society. Prejudice and discrimination may be partly determined by personality, but have more to do with group norms,and the desire to achieve or maintain a positive social identity and dominate other groups.

n Social psychology contributes positively to society by promoting social harmony. Positive, cooperative contact between mem-bers of different groups reduces anxiety and can generalize beyond the contact situation, while ingroup–outgroup categoriza-tions can be altered in various ways to decrease the importance of group memberships, promote shared identities, andrecognize group differences in a positive way.

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Interpersonal Relations and 18 Group Processes

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